Another Lunch with Andrea

We’ve just sat down at the Frisch’s on Glenway Avenue, and already I can feel my head start to hurt.

“You’re skinny, mister,” Andrea says. “You need to get some meat on those bones.”

“I’d rather be thin than heavy,” I say.

“Are you saying I’m fat?”

“No, Andrea, I’m just saying...”

“I’m going to get you a piece of cheesecake,” Andrea says, putting on her glasses to read the menu. “That will help fatten you up.”

Why she’s looking at the menu, I don’t know. She always gets the same thing: a Big Boy along with French fries and onion rings.

I’ve written about her here before, shortly after the presidential election in 2008. We worked together more than three decades ago at a machine tool company. Old habits die hard. That’s why we’re still friends.

“You got a girlfriend?” Andrea asks after we order our food.

“I’m not interested in a girlfriend right now,” I say.

“Well, it’s gonna be hard to get one with that cane you’re walking with. Look at me. I’m in my seventies now. I don’t need no cane.”

“Oh, I get it,” I say. “You’re trying to cheer me up and boost my self-esteem.”

“You’re funny,” Andrea says while taking out her cell phone. “Hey, I want to take a picture of you.”

“Yeah, it’s costing them a fortune to clean that mess up,” Andrea says. “I gotta do my part to help them out.”

My mouth is hanging open now, but the good news is that our food has finally arrived.

“Can I get a piece of cheesecake to go?” Andrea asks the waitress. “It’s for my skinny-ass friend here. I want to fatten him up!”

When she says the word “friend,” I realize that we are friends — actually very old friends. With friendships, you have to take the good with the bad. But after Andrea orders that piece of cheesecake it occurs to me that when it arrives I should rub it in her damn face.